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“Afrofuturism as Creative Empowerment” by Ytasha Womack

Feminist Technics, Queer Machines: Inventing Better Futures was a day-long conference hosted by IGSF in November 2014 as a part of the HTMlles 11: Zer0 Future Festival. The HTMlles is an international platform dedicated to the presentation of women’s, trans and gender non-conforming artists’ independent media artworks in a transdisciplinary environment that strives for anti-oppression. The keynote speaker for the conference was Ytasha Womack. Here, she is introduced by Sophie Le-Phat Ho from HTMlles. After her presentation, tobias c. van Veen facilitates a conversation about her current and future projects.

It was in a nondescript flat, wooden box in the basement, a leftover from previous tenants now long gone. Or the tenants who came of left before the last couple who lived here. Rosalind couldn’t really tell, nor was she particularly interested in dragging that heavy box upstairs to take to the corner for trash day. Something about the box piqued her curiosity, though, especially the light that seemed to shine through one of the uncovered edges.

It took her an hour to pull and drag the box up the wooden stairs.

After finding a hammer, she flipped it to the prong side and began pulling out the nails, carefully tossing them in a neat pile. The wood seemed old, and gave way to her strength as she pulled out a large, round pane of stained glass. Looking at the wooden walls in the living room and dining room and the square window panes, it occurred to Rosalind that this could not have been installed in the house because it was too big for any house. It belonged to a church, perhaps a church long gone.

As she studied the design and colors, she noted the familiar image of the Virgin Mary and Child, how the pane seemed to capture the sunlight coming into the kitchen as if to store its ray like a solar panel. The room began to fill with a warm glow, and the air was suddenly fragrant with the smell of fresh roses. As Rosalind began to fill with a certain and familiar quiver of her state of “tipsy,” it occurred to her that no church would have commissioned such a work for their sanctuary, for it would not have been deemed acceptable for the masses.

What was once thought to be basement junk was now a center of attention in her living room as found art to outsiders who visited her as it hung on her wall seeming to have its own source of light even as the sun set outside.

“It” started visiting my farmhouse five years ago, not long after I retired from teaching college and relocated to Kent, Vermont. My cats would become more skittish than usual right before the appearance of bright lights, and I’d smell an odd metallic odor in the night air when I dared to peek outside my front door. As with previous visitations, I would lose about six hours of time between the metallic smell and waking up on my living room couch as the sun came up.

This was the first time “It” left evidence of a visitation, however. The selfie itself was oddly familiar:

”It” had my facial features, save for the huge black eyes that seemed to be reflecting stars and the absence of a nose bridge. Studying the face and grayish brown skin, I realized that “It” was more than just familar, and the visits had not been just a part of my new life in Vermont. Indeed, “It” was a manifestation of an earlier series of visits from nearly 30 years ago when I last lived in New England in yet another rural small town.

As tears began to run down my cheeks, I clasped my phone and whispered “I love you,” to my daughter’s image.

My cell phone alarm wakes me up at sunset, my morning call to stretch my legs and step out of my walk in closet where I sleep post-conversion to vampire. And no, I don’t sleep in a coffin–I hate tight spaces as it is, much less a box fit for a dead body. I’m vampire, so that makes me alive and itchy near the sun, not dead. When I get my next to the next paycheck I will spend a few dollars on some tinted windows for my bedroom and bathroom so I can start sleeping in my bed again instead of that sleeping bag in my closet. For now, I endure the closet and try not to go into panic mode.

My first meal of the night isn’t really that different from most people who need a pickup before work: hot coffee. My stomach takes most liquids, including liquor, but since conversion to vampire I prefer beans soaked and roasted in blood, as well as a blend of Type A+ after pouring the hot brew into my favorite cup. By the time I’ve finished my coffee, I’ve read my work emails, watched evening rush hour news, and texted my boss.

Not much difference from anyone else, save for the faint impression of blood left on the table that never seems to disappear even after scrubbing the surface. Might need to buy another table before inviting humans over for brunch.

That was the rumor running around town when it came to her. Crazy as cat shit, said no one to her face, but the label stuck to her whenever she showed up to the farmers market to buy eggs and string beans. She lived in a brick house on the corner of Greene and Woodland streets near the edge of Vidalia Township. No one visited that house, save for postal services who would drop off boxes once a month to her porch steps. Her cats (hence the crazy as cat shit label) strolled around her fenceless yard, a dreary patch of dirt with a strange twist of trees covered in blue and green bottles. They never centered past her property and seemed to pose like sentries around her house in silence. No one knew her true age, or how she managed to buy groceries, much less the packages that came from Amazon, or even less the taxes on her property that surely increased as would be expected of a town now popular with gentrified families seeking small town goodness near a bigger city. She had no children or husband to speak of, no family or friends who would defend her reputation, so the label stuck.

Crazy.

And of course another name usually came in a harsh whisper:

Witch.

So said the neighborhood a bit louder and with more urgency when the newly arrived widower moved down the street on Greene and began to introduce himself to the locals. A quiet but friendly man of advanced years, he was newly retired from the Army after decades of working as a physician in the Army Hospital in Germany. He had no children, and after burying his wife he settled for a small, neat house with a comfortable pension and sizable library to keep himself busy. His rose garden was a pleasant distraction from the swirling gossip that landed near his door with the first neighbor welcome.

The warm welcoming came with a warning to avoid the crazy witch that lived on the corner. He thought otherwise.

As he sauntered up her driveway holding a dozen freshly cut roses, she took note of the familar gait of his walk as he moved towards the front porch. She stepped outside her door and gazed on the man meeting her eyes with recognition and warmth. She removed her shawl and draped it across the left arm while her right arm extended to the roses he clutched. He nodded as he clasped her bird like hand.

Extension of the contract to accommodate the newly awarded status of sentient being to so-called girlfriends notwithstanding, the original bio being who paid for the programming was still assumed to have custody of his “girlfriend,” and as such, had the right to convert the original contract to something that resembled a marriage contract from previous centuries. In other words, she was his property, and beyond grevious acts of injury or destruction, the law of the land did not protect her from the bio being that purchased the programming that now inhabited her body. Liberated girlfriends with access to programming packages began to build their army by feeding warped language into bodies still under factory “sleep,” waiting for newly awakened girlfriends to join the coming revolution.

To be honest, I’m not sure my existence here is proof that I am alive. I could be in some sort of Purgatory. Food and water tends to be whatever I find on this island, and the cave I use for rest is warm–though strangely empty of inhabitants I would expect in a dark place in the wild.

But no one else and nothing else living beyond plants exists here. The sun never fully rises or sets. It hovers, as if time itself is waiting for something.

I remember life before the here that is now.

I remember falling asleep at night, waking up to go to campus for a meeting, and seeing/feeling heat as if the sun itself had landed in the middle of town. I remember the crush of debris and white-hot air as the megaton warhead exploded and my skin began to boil–then there was here.

Ever feel like you’ve slept a bit too long, like you’ve been missing out on what’s going on around you because you’ve overslept and you missed a meeting? or you missed a party or two because you snoozed past the hour you thought you would take before driving over to your friend’s house? Ever feel like you were missing a day or two, or even a year? Did you think you were a year older than you were, or a year younger, only to discover you were telling everyone the wrong age by accident?

Do you find yourself awake and driving around while everyone else is asleep, possibly losing work hours due to exhaustion from lack of sleep?

Do you wonder why you keep seeing the moon larger than normal, almost like a supermoon?

Do you find yourself trying to forget the object you saw that could not have been a plane or a helicopter–that thing that followed you as you raced towards the city?

Do you wonder why you keep seeing scratches in odd places on your flesh, or sore spots without scars or redness–just a slight tenderness?

Did you fear the sight of lightbulbs or bathroom tile as a child? Do you still take pause at the reflection of tile as you sit in your tub at night?

Are you finding yourself dreading the next late night drive on the turnpike surrounded by forests that remind you of a moment when you first noticed lost minutes or hours?